Lance Letscher at Howard Scott

Art in America, Oct, 2002 by Melissa Kuntz

Lance Letscher obsessively crafts his collages out of found objects, preferring items that are patinated with wear. He meticulously cuts tiny fragments from old ledgers, diaries, recipe collections and books, reconfiguring them into poetic abstractions. "Someone's Life" was Letscher's first solo exhibition in New York. Born and educated in Austin, he has been showing in Texas since the late 1980s.

Of the 21 works at Howard Scott, The Open Boat (2002) is the largest, measuring 45 by 69 inches. It consists of hundreds of tiny rows, each row made of thin rectangular shapes cut from old books. The rows vary in texture and density, from single pages to cardboard book covers, undulating in a wavelike pattern across the horizontal composition. The work evokes the open sea, as if the tide is about to carry away a small boat, suggested by the shape of an oddly placed snippet of text.

The Farmer's Wife (2002) is a poetic portrayal of both character and landscape. Antique notes and ledgers recording the number of eggs collected from various hens make up the collage. These notations are combined with humorous pencil lists chronicling the wife's intentions to expedite the hatching of the eggs; she plans to set the chickens on goose eggs, the Rhode Island Reds on turkey eggs. Alongside the notes are various recipes for cakes and meringue cut from magazines. Layered on top of these clippings are bits of solid-colored book covers, suggesting an angular landscape.

In Sad Cake (2002), another of the larger works, a quiltlike pattern is created from precisely cut triangular pieces of paper. Like cakes cut into slices, the triangles are arranged in circular forms that are layered to create pinwheel-shaped spirals. In the bottom right corner is a carefully clipped and preserved recipe for molasses nut squares.

The viewer is drawn close by Letscher's exquisite color and striking compositions, and is then rewarded by the lively details of the letters, notes and scraps of paper. The artist's labor-intensive process of cutting and gluing thousands of pieces of board and paper results in magnificent abstract pictures. Letscher's labor becomes a fitting metaphor for the hard work of the characters whose lives are chronicled in the very material of these collages.